Page 37 of All Hallows Fate

“Get back,” I warned her, throwing a shimmer of magic between us. “We can handle this, little bride.”

I cast out a swell of darkness to catch Madde when he was unseated from Violence’s back, his second ankle snapped in the process. Miz’s magic shored up the holes in mine, catching the lunatic before he could break any more bones.

“Is this supposed to hurt?” he groaned, splaying on the floor.

“You’ve got two broken ankles,” Tor remarked, driving a fist into Violence’s ribs. “No shit, it’s meant to hurt.”

“My poor ankles,” Madde cried. “I loved those ankles.”

I caught Misery’s eye and he nodded. The two of us hit Violence from either side, keeping him on the broader landing where we had more space to move. I pushed my magic to the limit, ignoring the burn as it strained, stretched, and came close to snapping. Violence was bent over, teeth bared now, fighting as we combined our power to contain him. It wouldn’t last forever, but if we got him inside a prison of magic, it would at least buy us time to get out of this place.

I didn’t know where else we’d find a coil of iron, but we’d have to figure that out later. We’d long outstayed our welcome in this place. I was just grateful the remaining overseer had paused in the air to watch the fight, his stone head cocked, wings beating slowly.

“Cat, don’t!” Pain warned.

I whirled around on instinct, ready to catch my wife before she could get remotely near to her killer. But it was her magic, not her physical form that crashed past me, as dark and seething as my magic had ever been. The full might of death, alive in my bride. God, I loved her.

Violence hissed when her bubbling cloud of power hit his chest, knocking him to the floor. Victory swelled my chest for a split second. Until Violence kicked out his feet, and both collided with Tor’s legs, knocking his balance from him.

“No!” I roared.

Miz yelled his name.

Cat just screamed, a rattling bellow that made my bones ache. Strength and power distilled into sound. It hit Violence and crushed him to the black floor, but it was too late to halt Tor’s fall.

“The net, the net,” Pain rushed out, grabbing Miz before he could hurl himself over the edge of the path after Tor. “I’ve got a net.”

“Fuck,” Cat exhaled shakily, dragging fingers through her hair, snagging the pink strands on her nails. Sharper than when she’d been alive, as if even her fingernails had become a weapon.

“Echoing the fuck,” Tor called up, thready. “Thanks, Pain.”

“Don’t mention it,” Pain replied, reaching a hand down to help Tor up off the woven magic he’d stretched below the edge of the chasm.

“That’s some forward thinking,” I told Pain, relief making my voice deeper, hoarser.

He shrugged, setting Tor on his feet with Miz’s help. “We’re on the edge of a shit-your-pants-in-terror fall. It seemed obvious someone was going to fall off it.”

“Descriptive,” Madde said where he’d splayed on the floor. “I like it. I don’t like this mine, though. Can we kill Violence, find some iron, and go home now, lioness?”

“Yes,” Cat hissed, power rising from her body, making her hair dance off her shoulders. She moved like a force of nature, Tor’s fall and near-death awakening something ancient and boundless within her. I’d seen death magic plenty of times, but never like this. Although, I’d never known a god named Judgement before. There were records of one single Judgement existing before, but no one alive—or dead—could remember him. Which made Cat’s magic, and Cat herself, unknown.

She reached into the darkness and the scales emerged, the rose gold aglow with magic. I turned away with a hiss, my eyes burning even in god form, and judging by the soft swearing of the others, they looked away just in time to avoid getting their retinas blown out when the purest, oldest form of death magic I’d ever felt exploded from the scales.

The light burned for seconds that turned into minutes, and only when three minutes had passed did the deadly glow fade back into the gloom of the mine. It was the spirits I saw first, either cowering in their rounded caves on the opposite wall or kneeling, staring. As the spirits at the Wake had knelt.

Queen, they’d called her, and I understood why. Her power now eclipsed mine. Eclipsed Violence’s, too. If he was so desperate to name himself king of the gods and assume command of the domain, he’d have to get through Cat. And he knew it, a fact that sent ice water through my body and forced a shudder.

I was back in my regular form, I realised, and quickly shrouded by body in a fall of shadow, hiding the decay eating at my limbs. I didn’t have the heart to tell anyone, couldn’t bear the heartbreak I’d see in their eyes. Not when we’d miraculously got Cat back.

Now they’d stopped blazing with light, I looked at the scales, hope choking me when I saw one plate had lifted the slightest amount, as if Cat’s outburst evened the balance of life and death. If she could restore balance, if she could save the realm… maybe it would stop my decay.

It was a long shot, but I clung to it. No one else had to know I was fading. Cat would repair the realm. I’d be fine.

“I didn’t kill him,” she said after a long minute, her voice subdued, quiet. “I tried. I wanted to kill him, but the light just banished him from the mine.” Her shoulders slumped, a bitter twist to her mouth as she looked at me, then Tor. “I can’t kill him.”

“Yet,” Pain added, winding an arm around her back and pulling her against him. “You can’t kill him yet. That’s what your list is for, right? Stripping power from Violence so he can’t take over the domain, and you can get your justice by killing him?”

“Yeah.” Cat’s expression brightened, her back straightening. “Yes. We need that coil of iron if we’re going to weaken him.”